


Candy Apples and First Kisses

by Castiel_For_King



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Idiots in Love, M/M, written while listening to love songs on spotify
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-22 17:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4843820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castiel_For_King/pseuds/Castiel_For_King
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek takes Spencer to a fall carnival for their first date.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Candy Apples and First Kisses

Spencer looked up at the entrance sign to the fair, still struggling to believe that he was here. At the fair. With Morgan. On a  _date_.

It was mid fall, right around the time where all the leaves on the tress had turned their deepest, most vibrant colors but were still stubbornly clinging to the branches. The sun was already setting on the horizon, making the yellows and reds glow, and the earthy, crisp scent of autum was thick in the air.

A flock of small children ran past them and he heard Derek's throaty chuckle close beside - the goosebumps suddenly blossoming across Spencer's skin had nothing to do with the nip in the air and he rolled his bottom lip into his mouth to keep from grinning too broadly.  
  
When he glanced over his shoulder, Derek was already staring at him, his chocolate brown eyes crinkling with a grin, his dark, flawless skin awash with the reddish light of the setting sun filtering through all the colorful trees and it was absolutely  _ridiculous_  how attractive the man was. Spencer looked away before his own face turned red.

A futile effort on his part, for Derek suddenly threw a heavy arm over his shoulders - his long, thick, fingers digging in to the muscle of Spencer's bicep - and pulled him closed.

"You're cute when you blush." Derek murmured into his ear as they walked.

Of course, Spencer felt his face grow even hotter and he pursed his lips around a grin, trying and failing not to let the sappy, mushy feeling ballooning in his chest show on his face  _too_  much.

The tension between the two of them - while always present to some degree - had been crawling steadily closer to a climax. For the last several months, Spencer had noticed an increase of both the frequency of Morgan's flirting and a decrease in his ability to get through it with a straight face.

From day one Spencer had been a little confused and taken aback by Morgan's flirtatious personality. Well, not so much that he was a flirt, but more that he seemed to like flirting with Spencer just as much as anyone else. After a while he'd gotten used to it as just something that Morgan  _did_. Of course, with their jobs and their lives it was difficult not to get attached to each other and Spencer had found himself getting very much attached to Derek, and the constant flirting, little touches and toothy grins had not helped him move past it - had, in fact, made it much more difficult to forget about and the more he let himself slip when Morgan got flirty, the flirtier Morgan seemed to get until, well, here they were.

It had been a bit of a shock to learn that Derek felt the same way about him.

He looked around as they strolled down the gravel pathway. There were hastily constructed food venders wedged in between flimsy canvas tents, inside which there were bored looking teenagers manning impossible to win games for flashy prizes. A ferris wheel towered over all the tents and stalls, lit up with a psychedelic light show that strobed and pulsed. Candy wrappers and leaves littered the ground and the faint sound of carnival ride music drifted in the air over their heads like smoke.

"You hungry, pretty boy?" Derek asked him. "We could get hot dogs or something."

He wasn't particularly hungry but when Spencer spotted a little wooden stand with a display of candy apples, his mouth watered and he pointed shamelessly. "Let's get candy apples!"

"What is it with you and sugar? You're not gonna have any teeth left if you keep eating junk like that - don't roll your eyes at me, I see how much sugar you put in your coffee!"

Spencer grinned, butterflies exploding in his chest when he looked over and saw Derek smiling back at him fondly, their faces only ten inches apart. He felt Derek's large hand squeeze his shoulder.

"Ok, we can get candy apples." Derek breathed, his smile widening and his dark eyes flicking over Spencer's face. "Anything you want, pretty boy."

With a sudden burst of confidence that Spencer decided to utilise while it lasted, he reached up and slipped his fingers around the hand Morgan had on his shoulder, lacing their fingers together.

"You're hands are freezing!" Morgan suddenly cried over dramatically. His fingers squeezed around Spencer's, "You should probably let me hold the other one too, you know, to warm it up."

Spencer huffed a laugh, wondering if it were possible for a blush to get permanently stuck on his face. He lifted the arm that had been wedged between them and held out his hand, palm up, fingers long and slender and pale - a perfect contrast to Derek's dark, thick ones weaving between his.

"This is - " he'd been about to say  _ridiculous_ , but then Derek pulled their clasped hands up to his mouth and breathed over Spencer's fingers and the word dried up in his throat.

Well, his hands  _were_  a little cold.

As soon as they reached the candy apple stall, Derek regretfully let go of his hands - pressing one last kiss to Spencer's knuckles - but the one that had been on his shoulder wandered down his back and settled in the dip in his spine and Spencer shivered.

Derek had always been touchy-feely but now there was definitely something  _more_  behind the touches. They weren't pretending to be just friends anymore. Now when Derek let his arm settle over Spencer's shoulders or slide down his back it was heavier, it had more substance - it was indulgent. Like they'd been holding off for so long and now they were finally able to taste what they'd been after for years. Like making up for lost time.

The candy apples - as Spencer had accurately predicted - were delicious but, as it turned out, not an ideal date food.

He curled the tip of his tongue into the corner of his lips, tasting sweet caramel well past a respectable distance from his mouth and blushed again -  _dammit_  - refusing to look at Derek. The apple was just so huge it was impossible not to get a little messy, his mouth was only so big after all. Instead of trying to bite into it again - the fear of ending up with caramel lipstick was real - he licked a wide stripe around the candy coating instead, twirling the apple on the stick like an ice cream cone and feeling the caramel gather on his tongue.

Much better, he decided, smacking his lips and letting a delighted noise slip off his tongue. God, caramel really was delicious. Candy apples should be available year round.

"I'm totally gonna google how to make candy apples at home." he muttered, darting his tongue out to catch a drop of caramel crawling down the side of the apple. "Or maybe I'll just google how to make a pot of caramel sauce." That was the best part anyway, the apple was really just a way for him to get the caramel to his mouth. "Do you know how to make caramel sauce?" he asked mildly, finally looking at Derek across the picnic table.

Morgan had a slightly dazed look on his face, his candy apple forgotten in his hand and a trickle of caramel dribbling onto the back of his hand. Spencer licked his lips when he realized Derek's gaze was fixated on his mouth.

"Derek!" he laughed.

His head snapped up, brown eyes wide and Spencer was quite sure he would have been able to see Derek blushing if it wasn't so dark out now. The sun had set and the little fairy lights and flashing game panels were good for hiding embarrassment. After that, clearly desperate to distract him, Derek grabbed Spencer's hand and led him deep into the game tents, tossing away his half eaten candy apple when he spotted a game that allowed him to both throw and smash things.

"You want me to win you a teddy bear?" Derek smirked, already cracking his knuckles and eyeing up the glass bottles at the back of the tent.

Spencer scoffed, looking up at all the fuzzy, fluffy stuffed animal prizes hanging from the ceiling like some kind of creepy muppet gallows. Although he did spot a big, fat, fluffy owl beside a Spongebob doll. It was black and white and was wearing a pair of black framed, round glasses resting on it's beak.

It was adorable and he wanted it.

"The owl, huh?" Derek said, following his gaze. He winked and Spencer felt heat flood his face. "You got it, pretty boy."

"Derek, you don't have t -"

But Derek was already handing over a few bills to the guy behind the counter, who handed him three rough looking baseballs.

"Put your back into it." was the game operator's only advice, delivered with a smirk.

The first ball hit the top bottle square on.

And bounced right off it.

" _What?_ " Derek visibly, bristled, glaring at the guy on the other side of the counter, who was closely inspecting his finger nails.

Spencer pressed his hand over his lips, in case Derek turned around and caught him grinning.

His second throw went much the same way and Derek immediately swelled like a puffer fish, turning on the attendant.

"I told you to put your back into it." the guy said disinterestedly.

Derek was grumbling when he cocked his arm back again and then he threw the ball so hard he actually stumbled forward. The three bottles on the top of the little stack shattered into a thousand pieces and the attendant jumped, giving a little cry of dismay as he rushed towards his stack of remaining bottles.

"You were only supposed to knock them over, you neanderthal!"

Spencer doubled over laughing, both amusement and pride mixing in his chest because Derek looked to be about two seconds away from beating on his chest, staring down the game attendant with a victorious smirk.

"And I  _would_  have if you hadn't  _glued_  the bottles together!"

Derek reached up and grabbed the stuffed owl from the ceiling, grabbing the stuffed clown fish that was hanging beside it, waving it in the attendant's face.

"I'm takin' this one too."

It took a while to get Derek to calm down after that but eventually all the hand holding and arm stroking and ego petting on Spencer's part paid off and Derek stopped talking about going back and smashing the rest of the guy's precious bottles. Eventually they found themselves at the base of the ferris wheel and Derek was pulling insistently at Spencer, trying to get the younger man to budge from where he'd planted his feet.

"Nearly forty five hundred people are injured on amusement park rides every year -"

"Come ooon, Spencer." Derek whined, the ridiculous stuffed fish tucked under his arm and his fingers clutched stubbornly around Spencer's hand. "Just this one ride, I promise."

Derek's eyes went big and wide and Spencer sighed, rolling his eyes. "Fine."

When he stepped on to the carriage - which looked like it had been built about a hundred years ago - Spencer felt it rock under his feet and he grimaced, clutching the stuffed owl to his chest. He probably looked childish but he didn't give a shit because he was probably going to die in the next five minutes anyway.

Once they were seated - Derek shoved the fish behind his back like a pillow - and the super secure metal chain was hooked across their laps. The ancient motor grumbled to life unhappily and the platform slipped away beneath them.

Oh god, he'd forgotten ferris wheels move backwards; his stomach lurched when the wheel stopped again to let the next couple on and their seat swung.

Derek's arm slipped around his shoulders and his voice was low, hot breath puffing over his neck. "Don't worry, I got you."

Just like that, Spencer felt his nerves settle and he leaned in to Derek's side a little, hugging the owl to his chest again when the wheel turned them higher and a icy breeze blew over him.

"Cold?" Derek asked, pulling away a little.

Spencer was confused about why the man was moving away, until Derek started pulling off his leather jacket. The gesture in and of itself was enough to spread warmth through Spencer's chest, but when Derek swung the coat around his shoulders and leaned forward in his seat a little to tug it closed, the entire seat rocked forward sharply and Spencer gasped, hand darting out and grabbing Derek's arm, tugging him back against the back of the seat, heart pounding in his throat.

Stupid, he was being  _stupid_ , he knew that, but for a split second he'd thought they were going to pitch right over that flimsy little chain.

"Whoa, hey..." Derek's large hand closed around Spencer's fingers, prying them off his shirt, his other arm wrapping around Spencer's shoulders again, pulling him close. "It's ok, Spencer."

"Sorry." Spencer muttered, flushing with embarrassment.

Derek pressed a soft kiss to his temple and Spencer forgot what he was even supposed to feel embarrassed about.

The wheel started turning again, inching them up over the highest point and then stopping. Suddenly they were looking down over the entire carnival. The gravel paths weaved between the clustered tents like ant trails, people ambling along them, bathed in multicolored lights. The grounds spread farther than Spencer would have thought before hitting a dark line of trees, on the other side of which he could see the city lights and office towers jutting into the night sky.

"Beautiful." he mumbled, feeling Derek's arm tighten around him.

"Yeah."

He let his head fall to rest on Derek's shoulder, wishing they could stay up on top of the lights all night. He tilted his head back and found Derek already staring down at him, his dark eyes soft and his gentle smile even softer.

"Thank you, Derek." Spencer said quietly, unable to help letting his eyes wander down to the other man's full lips. "This was...amazing."

His fingers curled into the leather jacket.

" _You_  are amazing." Derek whispered, grinning.

Spencer rolled his bottom lip between his teeth, wondering if it would be alright if he just leaned up a little -

Derek bowed his head, meeting him halfway, and their lips pressed, soft and chaste, together.

Better than caramel, Spencer found himself thinking dazedly as they pulled apart. Derek tasted better than caramel, but he swiped his tongue over his lips just to be sure.

He felt Derek's fingers skittering up the side of his neck and he shivered, turning his face up when Derek lited his chin and this time when their lips met it wasn't so chaste. It was warm and slick Spencer failed to stop a breathy whimper from escaping his parted lips when Derek's tongue swiped over them. And then there was a strong hand tangling in his hair, holding him steady while Derek licked into his mouth and Spencer pushed back tentatively, his fingers curling in the front of Derek's tshirt.

They finally parted again when air became an issue, and they stared at one another, breathing heavily.

"Of  _course_  you'd be a genius at kissing too." Derek puffed, feigning a put-upon look.

Spencer released the strangle hold he had on the stuffed owl and laughed, feeling giddy. He was on a date with lovely, beautiful, kind Derek Morgan, who'd taken him to a fall carnival and bought him a candy apple and won him a stuffed animal and convinced him to ride the ferris wheel and then kissed him breathless while looking out over the city lights...Spencer felt like he was in a movie.

He let go of Derek's shirt and slipped his arm between his muscular back and the seat, pushing the clown fish out of the way, and laid his head back down on Derek's shoulder as the ferris wheel rolled forward, carrying them back down to earth.

**Author's Note:**

> ...did you like it or nah?


End file.
